Articles by Ross Baird
-
Guest Articles
Thursday
May 18
2017Ross Baird / Françoise Lamotte
Looking For the Next Big Thing: New Partnership Builds Fintech Ecosystems in Four Emerging Start-up Markets
A new partnership between Village Capital and MetLife Foundation seeks to build the fintech ecosystems in four emerging start-up markets: Poland, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Ukraine. The idea is to find, and then support, entrepreneurs working specifically in fintech who have the potential to solve real-world problems.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- financial inclusion, fintech, scale
-
Monday
April 11
2016NexThought Monday: Don’t Brag That You’re More Selective than Harvard and Other Lessons in Startup Acceleration
Investors, foundations and governments all want to use their funding dollars most efficiently, but it takes time and sustained effort to gather useful data. Village Capital recently released a new report with Social Enterprise @ Goizueta that begins to shed light on an answer. Part of the Global Accelerator Learning Initiative (GALI), the study is the most ambitious effort to date to track what’s working in accelerators.
- Categories
- Investing
-
Monday
June 15
2015NexThought Monday – How 5,000 Stranded Flip-Flops Almost Doomed Three Social Startups
Five years ago, Village Capital made its first investment – in Feelgoodz, the a U.S. fair-trade rubber company, which sells comfortable flip-flops that are responsibly manufactured in South Asia. Feelgoodz got a major purchase order from Whole Foods that January. Sounds like a great story, so why is the headline so depressing?
- Categories
- Uncategorized
-
Tuesday
May 14
2013Tech for Impact: Rapid advances in health care, education and design powers Village Capital India cohort
In mid-April, we launched our 18th Village Capital program, “Tech for Impact,” in partnership with CIIE (the Center for Incubation, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship) at IIM-Ahmedabad. We received about 400 applications from across India from entrepreneurs building technologies that provide affordable basic services to the poor, and have high growth. Here are some of the themes we’re seeing from the top innovators in India.
- Categories
- Technology
- Tags
- incubators
-
Guest Articles
Tuesday
February 12
2013Village Capital: Lessons Learned from our First 15 Programs: And announcing our 16th and 17th
Village Capital operates accelerator programs worldwide for early-stage enterprises serving the BoP. In our three-month programs, groups of 10-20 entrepreneurs build world-changing innovations in education, health, financial services, energy, and more. In March, we’ll be wrapping up our 15th program, and we’d like to share a few of our key learnings about the seed-stage/accelerator space.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
-
Guest Articles
Friday
March 16
2012Village Capital Expanding to Kenya, China in partnership with ANDE, Potencia Ventures
What if entrepreneurs could invest in each other? When we launched Village Capital three years ago, that’s the question we asked. And after ten pilots worldwide in four countries the answer is clear: peer-selected investment allows more companies to get funding and support faster, more effectively, and at lower-cost. This spring, Village Capital is coming to China and Nairobi with new partners.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
